Apple on Monday released iOS 7.1 . The new version is available immediately as an over the air (OTA) download. CarPlay, enhancements to Siri and iTunes Radio, and other changes have been made in the new release - including some performance improvement for long-suffering iPhone 4 users.

Apple officially unveiled CarPlay at the Geneva Motor Show last week. While the new technology won't be accessible until auto manufacturers roll out new models later this year, iOS 7.1 adds CarPlay support. CarPlay enables you to control Music, Maps, Messages, and select third-party apps using your car's center console display or through voice commands using Siri.

Also new in this release are changes to Siri - you can manually control when Siri listens by holding down the home button while you speak, rather than letting Siri automatically notice when you stop talking. More natural-sounding voices have been included for Mandarin Chinese, UK English, Australian English and Japanese.

iTunes Radio gets a search field to find new stations, along with other changes. Calendar will let you display events in month views, Accessibility gains new bold font options, offers a Reduce Motion option for Weather, Messages and multitasking UI animations, and more.

Here's the complete list of changes, according to Apple:

CarPlay

iOS experience designed for the car

Simply connect your iPhone to a CarPlay enabled vehicle

Supports Phone, Music, Maps, Messages, and 3rd-party audio apps

Control with Siri and the car's touchscreen, knobs, and buttons

Siri

Manually control when Siri listens by holding down the home button while you speak and releasing it when you're done as an alternative to letting Siri automatically notice when you stop talking

New, more natural sounding male and female voices for Mandarin Chinese, UK English, Australian English, and Japanese

iTunes Radio

Search field above Featured Stations to easily create stations based on your favorite artist or song

Buy albums with the tap of a button from Now Playing
Subscribe to iTunes Match on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to enjoy iTunes Radio ad-free

Calendar

Option to display events in month view

Country specific holidays automatically added for many countries

Accessibility

Bold font option now includes the keyboard, calculator, and many icon glyphs

Has anyone else had issues with emails downloading as they come in? Since the latest download I have to tap the email icon on both my iPhone 5 and my iPad for the messages to update. Before the email icon always had a running total.

What happened to the old mail-search in ios 7.1. Now there is only one entry for search, before I could search for from, subject, body text, etc. Is there any suggestion either to fix it or to get around?
Thnks
Oddedi

i went to update my iphone 4 today and I cant get it to go past the plug in part. I plugged it in and it still wont. its really annoying since I use my phone all day. now I have to go ot the iphone store after I get off work. maybe it's me. who knows.

Siri has clearly been re-engineered. Unfortunately, it fails every time I ask it to "read my text." On the other hand, it will speedily reply to, "what time is it?" "Set a timer for 20 minutes" or "what's the weather outside?" Seems that many things are no longer going out to Apple's server, but are being processed locally. On the other hand, the inability to read text messages is a real hassle. I use this feature all the time with earbuds while I am riding my bicycle. Oddly enough, it will send out text messages, just fine. But when someone replies, I can't find out what they have said without looking at the phone.

My daughter has the IP 4 32gb and she just updated to the latest update, and today while driving she plugged her phone in to listen to the music on her phone and we get a connecting message, it never loaded. She tried my IP 4 that I have not updated yet, and it loaded fine and played my music. Please advise. Is it the update? Can she go back to the previous software, and not have the latest update?

Ever since I updated to iOS7.1 my sound has been very wonky. When I take my phone off of vibrate, the sound doesnt work, if im getting a call or my alarm goes off it does but if im trying to play music outloud it doesnt work unless I place it onto a dock than take it off while the music is playing. It works with my headphones in though. Other than that, everything is fine.

Well well well ... Is not working for me ... I got iPhone 4s and since i updated to iOS 7.1 version my WiFi does not work ... I did all the resets bla bla bla and still does not respond.
I cant even turn on my WiFi anymore.
C c c c c c ...

I downloaded the update on my 5s and the bottom controls on safari are gone. I can go back by swiping the screen but I can't open new pages, bookmark sites or anything. I must be missing something or the changes are so simple I don't know where to find them. Any advice?

HELP! I updated my iPhone 4 with the new update iOS 7.1
I can't open FaceBook now? I checked settings & it's installed, it was working fine till I updated, everything else seams to be working fine tho? Why can't I open FaceBook now?

I could not update my ipad on the last 2 updateS. I keep getting, try back later) I also have a macbook pro 1 year old..I connected my ios device to itunes (latest version) and it says you cannot back up your device on this,,,I tried my old winters,put the latest itunes..It took awhile,,,thought it was going to work..Then it showed..Your device has timed out.My ipad is working fine..But what is going on with my ipad update..and my macbook not able to back it up..I have plenty of room left.

Updated my iPad 3 and iPhone 5s. Works great on both. The stock icons such as iBooks seem a shade to two darker which I think is better. The "Bold" selection really makes a definite change. So much as I went back and forth several times before deciding to leave it turned off. The text on the keyboards in some apps like Notes was really nice with Bold on, but the glyphs in some programs like Numbers were too bold for my taste so it left Bold off. As for the Reduce Transparency function, I found the wallpaper made that decision for me. I use it on my iPhone but not on the iPad because of the different wallpapers used. Overall I love the changes. The effects are really noticeable and thus gives the user more control on the look of their device.

After doing the update, when I select any messages or anything on the settings, my phone is really slow and takes ages to go anything. It has also deleted all bar the last text message I have sent and received. I'm really frustrated!!

I don't have many apps on my phone, but it has been updating for 30 minutes now and it says 3 hours remaining through itunes..I attempted to update OTA last night, but received error 3 times. Does it usually take this long?
ETA: This is my first iphone

I'm in Canada and I thought that the update would allow me to use iTunes Radio but it is not coming up. But the last update it would come up and I would click start listening and then it would tell me that it is not available in my country. I've turned my device off and it is still not working.

I did the update about 45 min before leaving work. It took a few tries bec I assume the servers were being hammered. It was not quite done with "preparing" when I was out the door. I assumed losing wifi would end the update but I was incorrect, it kept going and finished on the drive home. I only noticed drain so far on battery bec it undid all my settings (ie turned background updates and bt and wifi on where I leave that all off). Haven't noticed any other issues.

Touch ID does not work consistently anymore. Very bad. I see a lot of posts over at the apple support forums stating the same. Sometimes it will work other times it's like the sensor is totally shut off.

OMG....this thing got so hot that I even got a notification from the phone saying "Temperature now, iPhone needs to cool down"
This happened right after installing the new update, I was just using the gps.
It was really, really hot.....I restarted the phone after updating though.

Yes, but it will go from filled-in to outline. Filled-in means an app is currently using your location, outlined is a geofence. I notice that the icon I have is constantly outlined and that's why it won't go away so I'm guessing my iPhone is geofencing always. I don't think it displayed when an app was using geofencing pre-7.1 so that may be what's keeping the icon live in the status bar.

My iPhone 5s just restarted installed 7.1 and wow first think i noticed was (because i have all the animations and parallax stuff on) was how much faster it all was tap on a folder and it zooms in almost instantly unlike. The animations are so much faster you zip about

Wish I could turn off the parallax effects instead of it reducing but I got to say I love how speedy the animations are and how fast my 5s is now then before! Don't really like the boldness in the keyboard though.

It appears iOS 7.1 does away with full screen contact photos on incoming calls. Did Apple offer any rationale for this design change? It is utterly senseless. Yesterday, a fleeting glance told me if a call was from my boss, my wife, and so on. Now I have to pick up the phone and read the screen. What am I supposed to do, use the teenagers' kludge of having separate, cheesy ringtones (that I will have to commit to memory) for each important contact?

I see what you mean. I personally am in love with the new phone and decline buttons. The ones they were using in the iOS 7 debut were just too blocky and tacky. However, I too wish they would've kept the full screen contact photos for calls. But it was probably for good reason. I now see that we have options to text and remind along with answering call or declining (we may have had those already, correct if I'm wrong) so my guess is that this change was likely made to free up UI space for those features. And to be fair, the contact pic is still to the right in a sizable circle, so it's not like you would have to squint to see who it is. But not everyone is the same, so I would imagine this will no longer be an issue when we receive larger screens.

I see what you mean. I personally am in love with the new phone and decline buttons. The ones they were using in the iOS 7 debut were just too blocky and tacky. However, I too wish they would've kept the full screen contact photos for calls. But it was probably for good reason. I now see that we have options to text and remind along with answering call or declining (we may have had those already, correct if I'm wrong) so my guess is that this change was likely made to free up UI space for those features. And to be fair, the contact pic is still to the right in a sizable circle, so it's not like you would have to squint to see who it is. But not everyone is the same, so I would imagine this will no longer be an issue when we receive larger screens.

I think that because the new call buttons are circular, which seems to warrant some uniformity around the OS, that Apple took it a step further to include incoming contact photos. Do you sync your Facebook/Twitter accounts and add that information to pre-existing contacts? That's another reason they may be circular.

Just installed it. It seems there might be different update packages as the update for my 4S was only 186MB. Maybe the 2.68MB update is for the original 5 & 5C & the 1.3GB one is for the 5S. Or they are dependant on the last update that was installed prior to the 7.1 update.

Yeah and do you want to pay it for me? I cannot just afford to drop 500 bux on a new phone. I am not eligible for another 8 months and ATT EVEN THOUGH I HAVE BEEN WITH THEM since they were cellular one, WILL NOT put me on ATT Next yet, EVEN THOUGH I have never been late with a payment, EVER. So go ahead, tell me again to upgrade, I'll give you my bank routing number.

You don't have to be a ass
It's a 4 year old phone, what do you expect?
I was thinking you should have a upgrade since you have the 4
You can always dump AT&T and switch to TMobile
I left AT&T and NEVER looked back
Plus you WONT have to pay $500 for the 5s or your ETA with AT&T
Check it out

One bug I've seen since the 7.0 betas still exists. In Mail, sometimes if you open a message the blue Unread mark won't clear. Only thing that will clear it is to back out and reopen the message, go back to the inbox and reload by pulling down, or manually mark it as read from the swipe menu. I filed a bug report with Apple about it last year and they asked if the 7.1 beta fixed it, but I couldn't install the beta on my only device.

Otherwise, I LOVE the sped up animations. Makes it feel much more usable.

DO you know how many times I have done that? About 50. DO you know how many times I've been to Genius bar? Same amount. Do you know how many times apple has told me to restore? 100 times. And you know something? IT NEVER WORKS. Do you know how many times an Apple tech has restored it in front of me? 20 times. You want to know what their answer is? UPGRADE.

I didn't have the update available on my iPhone 5S right away no matter how many times I tried refreshing the settings app or opening and force closing it, but when I did a hard reset of my iPhone 5S (holding power & home button simultaneously till the phone shuts off) then when I opened settings and looked for an update it immediately pulled up the update for iOS 7.1

Yes, I just checked that, looks nice. One thing is pulling up quick settings from the botom is a little too springy and light goes flickering. I don't like that. I wander if it is just for iPad 3 or all iPads.

I can say I installed it right away, and haven't had one yet. My daughter on her iPod touch noticed it more than I did. Won't get a proper test with her until the weekend due to school, but that will be the real test.

I updated my iphone 5 and currently updating my ipad mini 2. Speed improvements is noticeable. One thing i have to complain is why they included the weather animation in reduce motion? I just like the weather animation. I keep turning on my reduce motion coz i just dont like the wallpaper to be spread out.

Waiting for it to download as we speak. iOS 7.0.6 is pretty fluid on my iPhone 5 anyway but it can only get better. Excited to see if my iPad 2 will run a bit more smoothly (beginning to notice just how much less RAM it has these days).

I know it's not really that related, but I'm still waiting for iTunes Radio in the UK & Ireland...

Well my iPhone 5 downloaded update in less then 3 minutes and update is on... Now I'm looking to see what is new. But my mom's iPhone 5c and dad's iPhone 5c showing ESTIMATED TIME more then 5 HOURS (ok, I know servers are full now but I'm surprised then how fast was on my iPhone 5)!!! For now still searching what is new! :-)

FYI. This paragraph has three typos. Just thought you'd like to know...

iTunes Radio gets a serach field to find new stations, along with other changes. Calendar will let you display events in month views, Accessibility gains mew bold font options, offers a Reduce Motion opinion for Weather, Messages and multitasking UI animations and more.

I have iphone 4s and after updating, closing background apps by tapping the home button twice does not work.Do you lot have a suggestion on how to fix this? I tried resetting that did not work.I am very frustrated! Otherwise, I am very pleased with the improved performance.

I downloaded ot as soon as I saw it was available. I really jad no issue with the OS on either of my crevices so not seeing anything major yet. Nice to be up to date tho. I'll keep playing around to learn a few more of the new tweets. Gotta love it.

I've been using IOS 7.1 for about 3 hours and there are improvements, in the last couple of weeks I've even disabled all the transparencies, because at some specific tasks the phone was frustratingly slow, now with the update is a lot more pleasant to use, it won't fly but at least walks faster than before and its still very capable, so I turned the fewer transparencies on again.

The screenshot is from a device running the beta. Based on our preliminary water cooler discussions, it appears the update from the beta is, for whatever reason, significantly larger than the release version. 268 MB for me too.

If you download the update via iTunes (after connecting your device) it is downloading 1.4GB. If you are updating your device directly and wirelessly the update is apparently on around 268mb. But I did get a message that it would require 1.5GB free space on my iPhone in order to install it.

Because iOS 7 has effectively removed the multiple application function on anything older than an iPhone 5. It has made the Note app one of my most used apps, as I can no longer copy and paste from two different sources.